News and views from a one-man "newspaper' in Connecticut's 4th-largest city

Like a New Year’s morning hangover, the resolutions can be nauseating — and can last a while, sometimes until Groundhog Day. Many are redundant year after year: start a diet; lose weight; join a gym; quit smoking.

I have made the same annual promises to myself, too: show up on time for appointments; clean out the household clutter; organize my files, etc.

This time I want to stick to them. One reason is that, like many aging baby boomers, I’m running out of years for which to make them. Another incentive is that I have been drowning in clutter for years, it’s not adding quality to my life and I have more time to get organized now that I’m retired. As 2011 progresses, I might want to change that to semi-retired if I can find some writing jobs.

Let’s get to it:

• Throw away long-unread books, magazines and newspapers.

• If you haven’t worn it in a year, donate it to Goodwill Industries.

• Reorganize the shelves and files as someone running a business would, to achieve maximum efficiency. They would lose a lot of money if they wasted time constantly looking for things.

• Use the Web for specific purposes, such as looking up an address, doing research for an article or blog, or shopping online.

• Cut social media (Facebook, Twitter) time to one hour or less per day.

• Trim TV time. “The Office” jumped the shark years ago. Let it go.

• Read some of those books gathering dust on the shelves. Pick out the good ones and toss or donate the rest.